OP - You are not paying taxes over and over again on the $12K non-deductible IRA when you do Roth Conversion. Here's an example using rounded #'s for Ease. On Dec 31, your IRA balance including the $12K was $200K - so the $12K is 6% of it. If you convert $50K, then 6% of the $50K will not be taxed (...

House is now 40 years old; hot / humid climate. House was replumbed (water intake) about 5 years ago; so at age 35. We had 4 leaks; 2 were 8 years prior to the last 2 - so those leaks occurred when house was about 27 years. The last leak was a slab leak without any evidence of water anywhere, that w...

Moving your dad to any other facility will be very hard on him. People with dementia do not do well with change. It sounds like your dad is in a memory care facility and at $5K a month with his existing income excluding investment income is mostly covered. The income on his investments will probably...

We receive about 40,000 dollars a year of dividends from the taxable investments ... The 40,000 dollars will be our only income after this year. How Roth conversions would be marginally taxed depends on how much of the dividends are qualified and therefore subject to favorable tax treatment. For ex...

You don't need to withdraw to get taxable income. Roth conversion will give you taxable income and reduce future RMDs at the same time. :) The OP should have enough income to exceed Medicaid levels just from interest and dividends from the taxable account. I'm estimating about $25k- $30k in dividen...

A few weeks in and all these replies have been great for context. A couple of updates and one question. 1) I secured a high deductible health plan for all four from Golden Rule (United Health Care). Deductible is $12,500. 2 million in coverage after deductible is met, per person. My husband got thi...

Our ages are 62 (him) and 66 (me) with a December birthday so I don't know if the additional IRMA for 1 person may just be for a month that first year. Your 2019 tax return, filed in 2020, will be used for your all 12 months of your 2021 Medicare premiums. If he will turn 63 between now and the end...

I remember that Small Law thread; It would be great if he came back and updated with what he ended up doing. We've been converting to the top of the 15 (now 12) % bracket since 2015 forgoing any ACA subsidies. A lot of our income was Muni $ so our tax bracket was super low and we were able to conver...

What will be your eligible Roth IRA contribution in 2018? A few years ago, we simply paid the excise tax for overcontribution and then said the it was fixed when we were eligible to contribute the next year. The reason we did this was that our Roth IRAs had gone up substantially during the year. So...

Well it's hard to say anything without knowing the policy details of what she bought. There's also this, which is what I said in my earlier post about the insurance company being unable to respond in the media due to HIPAA privacy laws: "UnitedHealthcare, in a statement to Consumer Reports, said it...

BruDude - Can you comment on this? Person has S/T 3 month coverage with UHC. Goes to hospital for Emergency Surgery for diverticulitis, no problems with it being covered after her deductible was paid. Policy renews another 3 months, however, she went back to the hospital with an abdominal infection....

Once you express interest the deluge of emails and phonecalls from low level call center operators is quite amazing. For sure! I went looking online for info on non ACA compliant options. It’s so easy to get info on ACA options. Lowest bronze for 62 yo me is $1000. I haven’t found any on line info ...

I don't understand. Why do you think the plan wouldn't cover a rotator cuff surgery? (after the deductible) The insurer only knocked it down to a few thousand b/c that was the negotiated rate. It's a pre-existing condition because he's had rotator cuff surgery in the past. Another problem with thes...

Yes, that is why I am here getting feedback. I never really understood the differences but seeing a $400 per month difference in price, I knew there was a difference. Now I'm starting to understand it. Those 6 bullet points above are not covered and could pertain to someone. I'd say it's highly unl...

We are seriously looking for a short term plan for 2019 for my husband - he will be 62 in 2019. No preexisting conditions, we have been paying full fare for ACA since 2015 - premiums > $60K (bronze plans). No claims. The difference in cost is HUGE. $800 per month - bronze plan - just him (increased ...

In south Florida, 20 miles away from beach, for a 500K property, insurance is 4K. Not sure if it is insane. No, I don't think that is insane. Last time I had a quote for normal 2% hurricane deductible ($14,000 deductible), it was 5 years ago and the lowest one was $14K with my $2K credit for the Le...

Thanks all - I currently live in a “boring” TX suburb, so I can’t imagine it being any worse, especially so close to the beach. Hurricane season is a bit worriesome, when it happens what’s your typical protocol? Get on a plane and see family, drive out of state, etc? Also - is rust and vehicle dama...

I live in Indialantic and other than the hot/humid weather you already experience, it is a great place to live. I would look at Indialantic and Melbourne Beach. There are 2 main roads going north and south - A1A and Riverside Drive. A1A has strip shopping centers; Riverside Drive does not. The barri...

I'm interested in these new policies also. I haven't found any that quote for a year. I've found United Health Care plans which cost about 1/3 the premium cost of a full pay Bronze ACA plan. Max Benefit is $2M, $10K deductible. When we both had our crappy ACA bronze plan, our deductible was $12.6K. ...

... I will say I'm surprised at all the anti-529 sentiments on here. From my understanding, Grandparent-funded 529s are great estate planning vehicles in that they 1) minimize the size of the estate, reducing taxes 2) all the usual 529 benefits of tax free growth if spend on ed 3) Grandparent contr...

Is this "Liability Only" something unique to Florida? Liability only coverage suggests to me a business type policy. Please clarify (?) I don't know if it is unique to Florida but it has been around for a long time. I know you can't have a mortgage to get it. But when you buy it, you can get an umb...

Since your dad does not have home insurance, he needs to buy Liability Only insurance for his homestead. It should cost about $300 per year. I've hired tree trimming people that basically went knocking door to door. It is doubtful that they had insurance; sometimes their cards say they are licensed ...

... Less std deduct+1.3K 13300 ... IRMAA is based on MAGI, which is based on AGI, not taxable income. One doesn't get to take the standard deduction. Would be nice, but.... Thanks I corrected the IRMA income stream; so it would probably take 3 years to liquidate it within the IRMA limits.

That's a terrible situation to be in; but what's to keep the deadbeat sister from selling the house/property if everyone quit claims their share to her? Can the owners get liability only insurance on the house to protect them from a lawsuit should it arise. I have no idea how a liability only policy...

...I did not know plastic forks & knives could go in the dishwasher. GOODIE! Because I do hand wash table ware because I need to... I do use regular plates at times, and those go into the dishwasher. When the dw is filled, I run tap water into gallon jugs to both heat the water to dw temp, rather t...

Thanks for all your hard work on this. I bought the digital version of the book today. Ages 65 (me, lower earner but still much higher than spousal), him (61). Both retired early (50, 58 respectively). I only tried one other SS calculator and it had said for both to start SS when we turned 70. Too b...

You can get a liability only policy. The last time I looked it was about $300. But $700 for your entire house including liability is dirt cheap. This year, I removed insuring the interior contents and reduced my premium by $1K so it is the same as it was in 2017. I have huge deductibles and would lo...

Ours was $1400 per month for an HSA Bronze plan. After doing the math for getting a better plan (Silver), the extra premium negated the lower deductible so took our chances with staying healthy. I don't know if this just applies to Bronze HSA plans, but they combine the deductibles for 2 or more, so...

Do you have separate structures? Do you need all that personal property? Do you really need the 30K of Identify fraud coverage? On my bill they finally put a price on the $59K of external structures that I don't have. Prior years it was just bundled in the price. This year I called and had them rem...

On my bill they finally put a price on the $59K of external structures that I don't have. Prior years it was just bundled in the price. This year I called and had them remove the $456 for the non-existant external structures along with the $300K of personal property and it lowered the premium by $1...

Do you have separate structures? Do you need all that personal property? Do you really need the 30K of Identify fraud coverage? On my bill they finally put a price on the $59K of external structures that I don't have. Prior years it was just bundled in the price. This year I called and had them remo...

I don't understand the anti insurance posts I've seen recently on the board. Well, not necessarily anti insurance, but just thinking it's not necessary. While my house is not 12% of my net worth, I could easily afford to rebuild it if it burned to the ground. But, it just seems silly to me to foreg...

Also partial to W/W. We bought admiral shares of G. Wellington soon after it was launched but still $25.00 NAV. Took ~$40K of funds from Star Fund so the ER was about the same; took the rest from a Bond Int Index fund which turned out great. Will probably buy the G Wellesley also; but don't want to ...

We also live in Florida (east coast, barrier island) and have yet to have significant hurricane damage. Our insurance is so expensive, I went with a 10% deductible years ago ($70K damage before the first $ is paid). Many of my neighbors do without insurance. We struggle every year whether or not to...

I'm not an expert on this, but I would think you'd be able to get a policy that doesn't have any coverage for hurricanes. That should lower your premiums and still prevent you from being exposed to things like fire. No you can't .... unless you are within some insane SHORT distance to the wind zone...

We also live in Florida (east coast, barrier island) and have yet to have significant hurricane damage. Our insurance is so expensive, I went with a 10% deductible years ago ($70K damage before the first $ is paid). Many of my neighbors do without insurance. We struggle every year whether or not to ...

Has anyone applied on exchange but not take the subsidy until they did their taxes? I've done exactly that the past two years. My wife and I are both self employed, and we have rental properties, so we don't know what our gross income, expenses and MAGI will be 13 months in advance. So, we pay the ...

HEALTHCARE.GOV finally fixed the subsidy calculation for Married Couple, one who does not need coverage (first box checked in spouse information). Our subsidy which I knew was WRONG was $1506 and now is $462 per month. Now I have to do the math to see if ROTH conversions are more advantageous. Minim...

The Healthcare.gov website is having a problem with the premium tax credits for us with one on medicare and looking only at insurance for my spouse. The credit is about double what I would expect based on a perusal of Form 8962 so do watch out. It seems to think we are both getting insurance throug...

This is the subsidy calculated from one of the providers for 2018 plans: Your income of $64,900 for a family of 2 likely qualifies for an estimated tax credit of $183 per month. Another provider with 2018 plans, calculated a subsidy for $190 but for $64K, entering $64900 produced 0 subsidy. This is ...

I ... changed my age to 64 and the smallest subsidy I got was $1506 for $64960 of income. For $65K income, the subsidy was 0. I just don't see how these subsidies are right. The FPL is $16,240. Subsidies take effect under 400% of FPL which is $64,960. So it makes sense that the subsidy is zero at $...